Claw
Overview Claw was once a panther, he was in the prime of his life, and he had prowled the jungles and underbrush of the African coastal regions. This was until his mate was killed by a hunter, this served as the traumatic event that caused him to shift where upon he throttled the poacher to death with his new hands. After this he wandered the jungle until he found a home among a tribal village who accepted him despite his panther nature seeing him as a sign of luck. How wrong they were when the village was raided by a team of men gathering “recruits” for the dangerous work in the mines. Claw and many of the village’s men were all taken into town and forced to work in the mines under threat of death, injury, and the return of the men to their village to hurt their people. Claw escaped the mine posing as a work hand on a cargo ship heading to UCAS. From here he got off and started wandering the roads across the North American continent. He “acquired” a bike and rode his way across the nation. He finally settled his wanderlust in Redmond, Seattle where he has now resided for a couple months squatting in buildings outside of touristville. As a Beast The jungle was his, the underbrush, the trees, the prey. The very smell of the places was his. He could move for a time when the light was low till it reached its peak and still be in his domain. He lived his life as an animal hunting in his territory, chasing opponents off and in time he found his mate. They were happy and she was ripe with his cubs. He went out to find food for his mate who would soon birth his cubs. He stalked a small prey from its home in the ground. He lie in cover and saw his prey, he moved, it moved. He moved faster though, he tasted its life. The small creature with its neck clenched in his jaws. The he heard it, a crack of thunder, it was not raining, there were no heavy clouds that brought the thunder. With the small creature, its life now run out, clenched in his teeth he bounded through the jungle back to his mate. Something was wrong, the smell her was wrong, the smell here was foreign it was not his it was no beast he knew, none of his rivals. He came upon the tangle of trees he called his den slowly. What he saw made him drop his prey from his jaw. He saw the man his skin a light brown standing over his mate, his mate who had held his cubs within her. He saw her life on the ground, on his hands. His vision red with rage he lunged. As a Man He hit the man square from behind. His paws moved to rake the man’s flesh, but they were his paws no longer. They were not his paws, but there was strength in them yet. The man fumbled underneath him, h e was going for something in his boot. Claw’s new mouth came down on his arm. He bit down as hard as he could and the man screamed as his blood mixed with the blood of his last prey that was already splayed across his face and hands. His new prey fought him, but Claw was stronger, he wrapped his hands around the brown mans neck like a maw he squeezed and the man turned red. He beat at claws arms, but they were bars of steel to the man’s weak strikes. The man fought back less and less, and then no more. He wandered from that place shifting back and forth between animal and man, seemingly without control. He wandered on four legs then on two and sometimes he found himself trying to use these new frontal limbs he had as he would have used his old legs. By luck, or fate, or random occurrence he walked into secluded village one day. Disoriented and confused Claw fell to the ground in the village center and shifted to his panther form and then back to a man. Many of the villagers saw this strange feat of magic or who knows, they called the village shaman who looked Claw over and proclaimed his coming as a sign of great luck for the village. They took him in showed him a home, taught him a language. They taught him to fight, and they taught him that not all men were like the one who slew his mate. After a year with the tribe he was a man among them and the shaman who saw him as a sign gave to him a sword of special significance imbued with the power to avenge the fallen and destroy those that stood before him. Claw was a fine warrior and this weapon was an extension of his skill and strength. It was a few months from then and a feeling of peace had passed over the village. No free sprits had attacked them in some time and the animals hadn’t tried to poach their stock in several weeks. This peace like any peace couldn’t last forever though. The rumble of trucks cut through the jungle and men came to the village. They pointed their guns at the men and women; they were calling for able bodied men to come with them to work in the mines to the south. The village’s shaman stepped forward and told them to leave this, that no one here would go with them. They smiled as they shot him dead. The men of the village rushed forward in a rage, but the looming threat of bullets and guns aimed at their families kept them from acting. They picked out one half of the men in the village told them they had 5 minutes to pack their things, if they weren’t back by then they would start shooting the women and children. Claw knew he had to protect his people even if it meant giving himself over to the men with their guns. He took his sword, the sword of his tribe and placed it inside a rainstick. Quickly sealing the cap with wax from the candles that burned in his hut he grabbed it and a burlap sack of clothing and made for the truck. As a Slave The trip was several hours even in the truck the sun passed from its zenith all to a point where it barely topped the trees before they were hustled out of the back of the truck. The air smelled of smoke and chemicals, so unlike his last home. There were few clouds here and the heat seemed almost oppressive as it radiated off the ground. An old man approached them and spoke their language. He told them that they would do work here. If they didn’t they would be killed, if enough of us didn’t work they would go back to our village and kill everyone there. He told them that they will work and be fed. He told them a lot of things, but it was obvious to Claw this man was nothing but a broken husk. His master said jump, he jumped, his master told him to tell them these things, and he did. His spent two years working in the godforsaken depths of the Earth. Down there he lost all kindness. Down there it was everyman for himself. On the surface it was kill or be killed. The wardens didn’t even care he had a sword, as long as he didn’t raise it against them. And within a few months, several of the guards even owed him favors. He ran the racket on drugs that the workers used to “escape” even if they couldn’t go beyond the perimeter fence without being shot. He sold the drugs for the guards and collected some of the profits. He learned to kill; men would do anything to get what they wanted he learned. They would kill him, so he would have to kill them back. Claw was in a good a place as a slummer miner like him was like to get in this corp run mining operation. He was feared by the other miners, paid up with the guards, and didn’t even have to work as much as he use to. He was still a slave though, working for scraps and under threat. He wanted to get out of this place, and in the ships that took the mines goods off to the rest of the world, he saw promise. It was a night shipment leaving port just when the guards were the most tired, the guards that were at their posts that night at least, he had called in every favor he had, and even some he didn’t to get as many guards off the docks as he could. Under the cover of night with his sword sealed inside his rain stick once more he set off and into the water. He climbed his way up the massive anchoring chain of the cargo ship. As he pulled himself onto the deck he crouched low to remain hidden. There it was, the bag as promised. He pulled it open and found exactly what was promised. The jumpsuit of a deckhand and workman aboard the Bernice, the very ship he now crouched upon. He had killed 2 of his fellow miners to get the favor for this small satchel of clothing, one of them his own former tribesman. Claw would escape this place no matter the cost. Free Again From the small window below decks he could see land on the horizon. It was an hour ago that the captain had told them to make ready for port. Claw did so with great fervor. Once he was off this ship he would be in another land, a land far away from the mines that had been his home for over two years. He had no doubt men here in this land were as cruel as the last, but at least in this land he would be free to be as cruel to them as they had been to him. He took off on foot, crossing the nation trying to find a place to rest. He did a lot of jobs back then most of them not legal. A panthers got to eat ya know? He scored a fake SIN from one job and from then on in he tried staying in the slums of the cities rather than avoiding them completely. There was more work in the cities than he ever got out of them, but he kept moving, none of it felt right. It was on a back highway outside Chicago that he met with opposition. He was being followed. He could see the dust cloud on the little used road a few miles behind him. It had been there all day and all of the last day. He decided he would meet whoever it was that was so interested in him. He stood in the road sword drawn for 4 hours, when he heard the thunder of a bike. As he approached he saw what was certainly something riding the motorcycle. It was a something and not a man because no man had claws like this thing. One arm was completely incased in was seemed to be bulging chitinous mass of flesh and claw. Its back arched and screamed. As it got closer he could hear it over the rumble of the bike the inane gibbering of this mad thing. He had picked up English in the mines and on the ship, but whatever this thing was yelling was no language he had ever heard the like of. It came hard at him and tried to run him down, Claw dodged underneath its bulgy claw and turned to face his opponent who was now circling wide for another pass. This time Claw readied himself, the monster came in again trying to crush him with his pincers. Claw rolled under it and snapped his sword arm up. The Blade sliced through the beasts arm at the elbow joint. The bug man thing lost control of the bike and went tumbling as the bike slid across the ground. Without missing a beat Claw lunged forward at the downed and disoriented creature and slashed at it it’s other more human arm. It came off like a wet noodle. The creature tried to grab at him with his legs and push itself up with its body, its bug like eyes glaring with hatred at Claw. Claw ended him with one final stroke of his sword. He took the bike as his trophy, it was better than walking by far. Once he figured out the pedals and shifting it was a no brainer. He could feel the wind on his face again like he was back in the jungle bounding through the underbrush. The bike was his now and he was its rider. Recently The last couple of months he rolled into the side slums of Seattle. Being as far as he could really go before starting to swim he figured it was a good a place as any to settle for a while, start doing jobs to make some money, maybe start up with drugs again. He pays out a few hundred nuyen to squat in some abandoned building and take care of his bike. It’s not perfect, but it’s his home for now.